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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A moist gingerbread cake made with molasses, sugar, butter, lard, sour milk, eggs, flour, baking soda, spices, and baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Soft Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the molasses, sugar, and butter-lard mixture.

  2. Add the sour milk and eggs, and mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into square tins.

  2. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cake rises and turns tender.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets while baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Butter and lard mixed
Adds fat for tenderness and a moist crumb.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Gradually adding the dry ingredients and stirring only until smooth keeps the batter from overmixing. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the gingerbread tough and dense.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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